


Epiphany

by VanillaRage



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 21:41:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4936345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaRage/pseuds/VanillaRage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a fight with Fenris, Marian apologizes. Make up sex ensues. </p>
<p>Brief mentions of Fenris' abusive relationship with Danarius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epiphany

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted on Tumblr.

Antiva City is described by those who love her best as a jewel in the desert and its natives are rightfully proud of its history, culture, and influence over the rest of the world. It is through its ports that the lifeblood of trade keeps the rest of Thedas vibrant and flourishing. 

But every golden city has it’s shadows; it has its own dark underbelly as large cities are wont to do. Filled with beggars, thieves, pickpockets, cut throats; its nobility ruled from the shadows by a murder of Crows, the city reminds both Marian Hawke and Fenris of Kirkwall’s Darktown. Keep your head down, your fuckin’ mouth shut, mind your own business and none of the neighbors give a damn about an elf and a human slumming it. 

Giving up the luxuries of the Estate and Hightown to go on the lam hadn’t been quite the jarring experience that Marian had prepared herself for. She had grown up avoiding Templars and Fenris had spent years on his own avoiding the waves of cannon fodder Danarius had continually sent after him. Old tricks were taken from the shelves of memory to be dusted off and used again. It’s not an ideal situation, but they’re both able to eke out a living as a couple of no-name mercenaries keeping food on the table and a roof, however shoddy, over their heads. 

Though for the past few days it had only been Fenris eking out anything. Marian had been sidelined by a lucky shot from an unlucky punk that had damaged the metal plating and the leather the plating had been attached to on her gauntlets. The Blacksmith she had contracted for the repairs had said that the piece wasn’t able to be repaired, and until they were able to forge a new glove, Fenris would absolutely not allow her out on a job until she was fully protected. So for now, the dynamic duo had been reduced to a single entity and she was left waiting in the little one room hovel they called home.

Fenris had established a custom since then of walking in only after the sunset. This didn’t surprise her; as an elf he was paid last, and often had to engage the contractor in…civil…debate of the worth of his work. This night was no different, with the exception that he had both hands full. In one was the pouch of coin that subsisted of his days earnings and in the other was her missing gauntlet. With a quick flick of his hands, the small pouch of money was flying through the air until Marian deftly snatched it out of the air with one hand. 

“That was completed sooner than I thought,” she grunted as she kneeled down to pry up the floorboards they’ve used as a hiding spot for the lockbox they keep their savings in. Fenris busied himself arranging her glove just so with her other armor as she set the lockbox on the table and removed their ledger book. The rows and columns of the worn leather binded pages are filled only with her neat printing; it’s the only chore that Fenris has point blank refused to do. She’s asked if he’d like to do it multiple times; he’s better at numbers than she is, and it would be an opportunity to practice his printing. Each time he has said no, and she no longer presses the issue. 

Fenris snorted as he threw himself on the bed. “I had a hunch it would be done sooner than their estimate. So I stopped by after claiming the reward from the Sargent.” 

The coins on the table gave Marian pause and her brows furrowed as she recounted them. “Was that job more difficult than you had expected?”

“A maleficar and a Tevinter slaver?” Fenris scoffed. “I should be paying them for giving me the opportunity to rid the world of such garbage.”

She leaned back and scratched her head, looking over to where he was lounging on the straw stuffed mattress. “It’s just there’s more here than what the job posted for.” 

“Oh,” Fenris shrugged his shoulders. “The smith owed you money. It’s included in the total.”

She blinked at Fenris before turning her head to recount the money for a fourth time. “Why would they owe us money?”

“They owed you money,” he glowered darkly, “because they took you for a fool who would be easily scammed. I made certain that they were incorrect in that assumption.” 

The ominous quality of Fenris’ demeanor had Marian looking at him. “What did they do?”

“They didn’t honor the terms of the original contract agreed upon by both parties,” he growled. “They repaired what they said was not repairable and attempted to pass it off as a new piece.”

“Huh,” she said, sitting back into her chair. “What tipped you off?”

“I recognized certain scratch marks on the rest of the metal,” he offered. “But in truth, I was looking for those. I expected them to attempt to scam you.” 

“Huh,” she said again, raising her fingers to her nose to pinch the bridge. “What made you think they were going to scam us?”

Fenris seemed to almost deflate with that question. His righteous indignation gave way to guilty chagrin. “I’d had dealings with this smith in the past. I’d heard of them doing similar and I wasn’t going to allow them to cheat you out of your money.”

“Our money,” she said with the automatic absent mindedness of someone who’s made that same correction a hundred times before. “Fenris, if you knew they were going to try and cheat us, why didn’t you say something to me before I entered into an agreement with them?”

Fenris stood up from the bed and began a slow walk that usually turned into an agitated pacing. If they were lucky he wouldn’t become overwhelmed by the conversation and feel the need to run away. It had been a long time since he had to physically escape a difficult conversation, but considering how quickly he had gone from relaxed to rattled she had a distinctly uncomfortable feeling she knew how this was going to eventually play out. 

“Fenris?” she prompted gently. 

“It wasn’t my place,” he finally spat out. “It was your armor, your money, and your decision. The last thing you need is for your pet elf to undermine your business relationships.” 

It took effort borne of practice to curb the knee-jerk reaction of exasperated sighing. Past experience with a hundred other conversations that revolved around the dichotomy of power in their relationship had taught her expressing a blatant negative reaction to his skewed logic that put him beneath the pedestal he’d placed her on often ended badly.

Often? Hell, always.

“You’re not my pet elf,” she finally said, keeping her tone low and slow to keep any hint of blame out of her words “And I think the last thing I need is to enter into any business arrangement with someone who is only going to rip us off. It’s not undermining me to prevent me from entering into any bad deals.” She was desperately hoping the impatience she was feeling wasn’t showing, but the increased speed of Fenris’ pacing told her she wasn’t as successful as she’d hoped. 

“They were human,” he pointed out. The incredulity in his voice and the flat expression on his face were the very picture of someone who had been forced to point out the painfully obvious. “Your credibility and good standing would have been called into question if your elven companion had pointed out what charlatans they were.” 

This time she couldn’t stop the heavy sigh loaded with annoyance from escaping as she covered her face with one hand. “I obviously don’t have any good standing if they were going to lie to my face,” she replied, irritation turning her words into sarcasm. “We’re not in Kirkwall anymore and here, of all places, you’re my equal. You’re not my damn pet elf, you’re not my companion, you’re my lover. I wish you would act like it instead of the slave you still think you are!”

If she could have snatched the words from the air before they reached his ears, she would have. Fenris flinched like she had physically struck him and the reaction took her back to her childhood comforting Bethany after Carver had said some fool thing that had left their sister crying into her teddy bear. Marian had dutifully recited the old adage of sticks and stones will break my bones, and just as dutifully Bethany had shoved aside her sniffles for a mask of joviality. It was bullshit; words were a weapon even more potent than the blade of the sword. They were the only blow Fenris couldn’t shake off, because they were the only blow he couldn’t see coming. 

His expression shuttered closed. The temperature of the room dropped palpably. Marian sat with her hands covering her mouth impotently. 

“I need to go,” he stated. His voice was flat and toneless. It hurt her more than if he had directed the full brunt of his anger at her. 

“Wait, Fenris..!” Marian tried to rise out of her chair as he stalked to the door, but in her frantic haste to reach him and try to take it back her legs tangled with the chair. By the time she was free of the furniture the door had slammed shut with Fenris on the other side.

“Shit,” she said.

Fenris would be back, of that she had no doubt. A life on the run had made him wary of every stranger, even the ones who had the potential to be allies. He had been called aloof, brutal, cold, thuggish and rude…and to be fair to his accusers he is actually most of those things to most people. It had taken her years to earn her way past his walls and barriers and he had rewarded her patient determination with a willfully blind devotion that had placed his metaphoric leash into the palm of her hand. When the night falls and their bodies cling to each other in the aftermath of their lovemaking, Fenris whispers that he is hers. It makes her sick to her stomach to know that he means it in its most literal, base way. 

Even dead, Danarius retains his tight grip on Fenris; there isn’t a day that goes by when Marian can’t smell the putrid stench of the bastard’s bloated corpse. This isn’t the first time she’s pointed out Fenris’ tendency to defer to her judgement, even in the simplest of matters. There is a myriad of other things he does that bring back the rotting decay of a man dead but not gone; the ledger, the deferment, the unquestioning obedience to her every perceived order…taken individually they are but a small piece of a much larger whole that when put together forms a gruesome picture of the life Fenris had been strong and clever enough to escape from. 

She takes no comfort in knowing that Fenris will be back by morning. By his own logic, he has no other choice. 

He is back, of course, like she knew he would be. He makes no comment on what had transpired the night before, and looking at him arranging breakfast on the table for the both of them you’d never know how upset he’d been a mere 8 hours before. He’s as prickly as his armor and refuses to talk about anything that leaves him raw and vulnerable unless he’s drunk. Marian thinks briefly of the bottle of wine they have stored but that reeks of manipulation and she’s far too guilty already to even entertain the thought for more than a fleeting moment. 

It’s Fenris’ nature to be taciturn and observant; he watches her prowl around without prying. He’s never acknowledged the insensitivities she’s piled on him over the years. She isn’t even sure he’s noticed them. Her ill-timed explosion of temper has her remembering every single time she’s taken his behaviors at face value. She knows Fenris is no victim; he’s strong, capable, and competent and that makes it easy to forget that his past was one worth escaping. If there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s having his failures thrown in his face and that leaves her stewing in a purgatory of her own guilt. She needed to apologize. How to do it without referencing Fenris’ behavior, and how his past had shaped that behavior was the question of the hour.

That hour became a day, the day turned into a week and the week threatened to pluralize with them only speaking the banal niceties expected of two people who shared living space. Eventually Fenris himself brought the matter to a head by confronting her. 

“You’ve been brooding,” he accused, pulling out his chair to sit at their table. 

“What? No I’m not,” her head shot up from Varric’s latest letter, the automatic denial tumbling out of her mouth before she fully realized what it was she was denying. 

Fenris tapped the topmost piece of parchment spread in front of her with a fingertip. “According to him, I’m the world’s foremost authority on brooding.”

She hefted out a quiet breath as she shuffled and arranged the scattered pages from first to last. Then she carefully folded them in half, only to unfold them and smooth out the creases when the edges refused to lay flush. A warm hand settled over hers to pause her nervous fidgeting. 

“Marian.” 

Her name was a command on his lips and she was helpless to do naught but obey. 

“Fenris…you…” she paused, trying to gather wits and courage about her. “You know I love you, right?” 

His eyebrows lifted momentarily. “So you’ve said.” 

She adjusted in her seat, hedging around the question she didn’t want to ask, turning the words over and over in her head, rewording them each time she considered what she wanted to say. The moments dragged themselves into minutes and she finally heaved out a gusty sigh. “I’m sorry I lost my temper with you the other day.” 

The mask of blank impassivity that slid over Fenris’ face as he slouched back into his chair and crossed his arms didn’t come down fast enough to hide the momentary look of bemused panic. “I don’t remember you losing your temper,” 

She stared at her clasped hands, bereft of his touch. “I lost my patience,” she clarified. “And took it out on you. Made you uncomfortable enough you had to leave. I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry.” 

Bewilderment cracked the carefully blank expression on his face. “Wait,” he said slowly, piecing their conversation together with the events of the past week. “Are you apologizing to me?”

She flicked her gaze up to lock her eyes with his. “Yes. I owe you an apology. I ask for your forgiveness.”  
He scoffed and looked away, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. “Is this why you’ve been moping about like a half starved dog? You don’t owe me anything.” 

“Yes, I do.” The words settled with quiet assurance between the two of them. 

Fenris studied her carefully; she was completely still, staring intently at her folded hands resting on the rough grain wood of their table. His loud exhale filled the silence of the room as he looked off into a corner of the room, furrowing his brows as he thought about exactly what she had apologized for, and what exactly that apology had meant. 

The eventual shrugging of his shoulders was a hairs breadth too calculated for it to be the casually dismissive gesture he was aiming for. “If it’ll make you feel better, then apology accepted.” 

His affected causality poked a hole in the tension that surrounded her; her shoulders lost their rigidity and she looked up at him with the first genuine smile he’d seen in days. The only weakness Fenris would ever willingly admit to was the way his heart stammered out a drum beat deep in the recess of his chest when she looked at him like that. She reached her hand out toward him and he took it immediately. 

“I love you,” she repeated, soft and quiet. There was happiness in confession, a distinct contrast to her earlier, desperate plea before her apology. The first had weighed heavy with guilt and sorrow and now there was only a sense of joy in peace. This was a woman who was happy in her love, and not just in love because she was happy. That she had chosen to be with him despite it all was a source of continuous amazement, pride and a sense of accomplishment. She made him want to be better than he was because she wouldn’t waste her time, her breath, or her guilt on someone who wasn’t worth it. 

The rash impulse to kiss her couldn’t be stopped even if he had wanted to, and he very much did not want to. He tugged on her hand and she rose from the table to place herself in his lap. Her lips were soft as he pressed his against hers; pliant and gentle. Words, he’d found, were cheap things, bought for a copper and twisted to suit any whim that floated along. So Fenris told her he loved her in the way his hands held her body against him to remind her that there was nothing more precious to him in the world. His hands roamed up and down her back, reminding him that she was real even as he savored the taste of her on his tongue. He held her close, kissing her face, her lips, her cheeks, each kiss a slow press of his mouth against her skin. 

“As enjoyable as this is,” Marian hummed in approval, “your armor is digging into my thigh rather uncomfortably.” 

Fenris paused and then chuckled as she rested her forehead against his. “Right then,” he rubbed his hand along the offended thigh in a gesture of his own wordless apology before allowing her to stand up. 

Marian settled into their bed, propped on her elbows and Fenris proceeded to ritualistically strip out of his armor. Each piece was slowly and meticulously removed and put away in its proper place revealing his tattooed skin bit by bit to her. Fenris knew she found him attractive to look at, could see the half formed smile on her face as she watched his muscles flex and relax as he neatly laid aside his clothing. He thrived on this attention, enjoyed it and encouraged it. He liked seeing the naked desire he could incite simply by removing his shirt. Her gaze was lasciviously lewd and he gloried in it knowing that it was fueled by love and not by the greedy desire for an object she had conquered. 

He stood in front of her half undressed with only a simple pair of breeches pretending at a modesty he didn’t actually feel. A pink, pert tongue slipped out of her mouth, tracing the contour of her rich, full lips. Fenris felt his body react instinctively; images of that tongue being used on his body, things he’d never allowed her to do before filled his head. The sudden desire to dominate, to tell this strong, independent woman what he wanted her to do to him had him pointing a single finger at her. The impulse was so strange and foreign to him that he didn’t recognize it what it was at first and simply followed the instinct blindly.

“Clothes. Off.” He ordered. 

Her blue eyes widened, and then settled into a half lidded stare as she tore her shirt from her body and shimmied out of her pants while never leaving the bed. She didn’t bother turning it into a show; the rough edge to his voice warned her he was in no mood for any sort of teasing, even the sort that tantalizes and mesmerizes. He’d issued a direct command and she wanted nothing but to follow him down this path of sudden whim and caprice just to see where it lead them both. 

The faint blue shimmering from the lyrium embedded on his skin belied his flat expression as he eyed her naked body the way she had unapologetically stared at him earlier. Red, curly hair, vibrant as her own fiery personality fanned out over the pillow; he wanted to tangle his hands in her hair and pull her up to meet him. He wanted to taste her skin, to remember its taste and texture on his skin but most of all he wanted to see how far she was willing to be pushed. 

“Kneel,” he said in that same curt tone. She obeyed immediately, hastening to push herself up off of her back and onto her knees. Hands were folded and placed primly in her lap, folded politely like a good little girl who’d been told she had to sit still or no dessert.

And Maker did she want dessert. 

“What do you want?”

His brusque tone, bordering on impolite made her shiver. She reached out to touch the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. “I want to kiss you,” she said, not even bothering to hide the raw need in her voice. 

“Then do it.”

She raised up on her knees, her arms wrapping around his lithe form. One hand went to his head, the other to his back. He allowed his head to be pulled to hers, crushing her lips against his own. When his insistence demanded the deepening of their kiss she complied immediately, opening her mouth to allow him to taste her. He pulled away far too soon for her liking; she whined in disappointment. The small sound made him curl his lips in a smile that could have been called gratified if it wasn’t for the small edge of cruelty that tainted it. Marian was frequently a cacophony of glorious, unabandoned filth when they came together; she cooed and ahhed, moaned and gasped at every opportunity. Her noises were a symphony to his ears, knowing that she was making those sounds for him because of him. He wanted to hear what she would do tonight. 

“I want…” he nearly lost his bravado, this fake mask he’d assumed for the time being as the implications, the consequences, of what he was doing caught up to him. Marian looked up at him, her lips parted with need, her dusky nipples pebbled and hard, and Maker he could smell her arousal from where he stood. She wanted this, she was enjoying this hard edge he’d never explored before, never dared to explore before and that gave him the permission he needed to slip further into this role that he found he was enjoying. He coughed, briefly. “I want your mouth elsewhere.”

A slow, knowing smile curved those pretty pink lips. “Can I use my hands?” she asked, her voice husky and deep. His cock twitched in anticipation. 

He nodded his permission and she touched him. 

She started high; he could feel the soft press of her mouth against his neck. Long tapered fingers settled on his chest, sliding down and then back up again, heedless of the branding on his skin. She placed small, wet kisses along his collar bone, sliding her hands around his back to hold him still. She would flick her eyes up to meet his as she left a trail of kisses, chaste, wet, sloppy, naughty kisses along her wake; she watched him to gauge his reaction. She watched him to make sure he was watching her. She watched him because she wanted to. One of her hands reached up to his shoulder, tickling its way down his bicep and his triceps, circling briefly around his wrist before she held his hand in her own. Her tongue was lapping against his own chest, pebbling his nipples into hardened points as she settled his hand on her shoulder. 

“I want you to touch me too,” she pleaded before placing her mouth back against his flesh. His fingers curled against her skin, pale and beautiful against his own darker, scarred flesh before he fisted his hand in her curls. He placed his other hand gently against her face, stroking her cheek in a wordless gesture borne of love and affection. She hummed in happy contentment; he could feel the vibration against his stomach where she was currently circling his navel with a meticulous attention to detail. 

She was working at the waistband of his pants, pulling them down over his cock, fully erect and weeping slightly at the tip. The linen fell to his feet with no ceremony, ignored in the face of pure greed she was giving him. 

She reached out for him like he was gift, running her fingertip along the underside of his length and feeling the smooth expanse of skin. A fingertip trailed around the head, a thumb ghosted over the slit. Marian sighed, appreciating the beauty before her. He watched her as she lowered her head, running her closed lips along his cock, one hand reaching for his balls while the other kept him exactly where she wanted. 

She reveled in Fenris filling all of her senses; his smell, the way he felt, his guttural moans above her. When she finally opened her mouth to take him in her mouth, she made certain she was looking up at him, watching him as intently as he was watching her. 

Fenris remained absolutely still as he watched her swallow his cock; he’d never allowed her to do any such thing before and watching her now, the sheer seductive eroticism of her bobbing her head as she brought him closer to that peak made him wonder why on earth he’d ever denied himself this before. He could hear her choking herself on his girth, taking in as much of him as she could before coming back up for air. The small lines of saliva, catching the light of the candle placed on the table, knowing where it came from and why they were there made him even harder. 

Her hand wrapped around his length as she knelt further down, taking his sack and mouthing it. He threw his head back, feeling those lips against him. His hands tightened into her hair and he felt her giggle against his thigh. Lazy up and down motions on his cock ceased as her mouth replaced her hands, a look of pleased-with-herself mischief written all over her face. 

“Marian,” he managed to choke out as he could feel his balls begin to tighten. “You have to stop.”

She pouted as she pulled away, a loud pop as he was released from the sweet suction of her perfect mouth. “I don’t want to,” she said and that petulant, utter truth of that statement almost had him losing the thin thread of control he had left. 

“You haven’t…” he managed, gesturing vaguely off to the side. “If I go, I want you to come with me.”

“But I want you to go,” she begged. “I want to taste you on my tongue. Please, Fenris.” 

Old conditioning warred with his new life; to climax without giving his partner pleasure in return, without them coming first was unheard of. He couldn’t even begin to fathom it, and until she had spoken it plainly, left it out in the open as an option he hadn’t even imagined it as the remotest possibility or the wildest dream. 

Fenris slammed his eyes shut, cursing himself for being a wanton fool for even considering finishing without her first. His life was defined by the rigid control he held over himself and his emotions, and here he was, panting like a selfish, greedy, bastard he tried so hard not to be at the thought of Marian finishing him off, wanting to finish him off and asking for nothing in return. 

His mental self-flagellation paused as he considered that; Marian was not laying there prone and simply accepting what had been forced on her; she wanted this. She wanted him. She pleaded for it, with her pretty pleases and her wide blue eyes. She’d made him feel loved, cherished, like he mattered. Like his happiness mattered. She’d never demanded anything from him except that he learn to take better care of himself. That he was worthy of this woman, that this woman thought him worthy of her consistently drove him to be that man she thought he was. 

“Please Fenris, I want to,” she said again, pretty and plaintive, beautiful in her begging. 

He took a deep breath, stood over the edge of a precipice and dove off. “Maker, yes,” he hissed. 

Sheer enthusiasm lit up her face as her hands and her mouth went immediately to him. She dispensed with the coy teasing that had marked her earlier ministrations; she wanted him to cum, hard, fast, dirty in her mouth and she was doing everything in her power to make sure he did. 

He howled as his climax hit him; he clutched at her head, feeling himself empty into her mouth. She took it without a hint of disgust at the texture or the taste or any of the million other things he himself had found distasteful. Exhausted and panting, he let himself fall from her mouth and then into her arms. 

A warm blanket was pulled over their bodies as she laid beside him, her head propped on her hand as she examined him from her side.

“I need to see to you,” he said as soon as he had caught his breath and his mind had returned from where it had flown off to.

“Mmm,” she hummed non-committedly as she tightened her hold on him to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere. “Fenris, just because I didn’t orgasm doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the sex.” 

“But –“

“Later,” she affirmed. “Because you want to. Not because you think you have to. You don’t love me just for what I can give you; please don’t assume that the same doesn’t hold true for me.” She kissed him, gentle and slow, affectionate and loving, then slid under the covers, slinging one leg over his and draping her arm across his body. He held her close, tucking her into himself. 

The next morning, before the sun had fully risen and no decent person was out of bed, he took her, relishing her writhing, arching, glorious self underneath him. 

Because he wanted to.

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shit, you read the whole thing? Bless you! Domo arigato. Gracias. Merci. Thanks for your time, hope you enjoy your day!


End file.
